Over recent years, all GP practices have seen a a year on year increase in demand for appointments due to care moving out of hospitals, people living longer and more complex care for chronic conditions. It is therefore important not to waste appointments but frustratingly, we have seen an increase in patients not attending appointments they have booked.

Please help us help you by reading about our appointment system below:

ROUTINE APPOINTMENTS

Please call reception after 10 AM if you are able to do so. All our GP/Nurse Practitioner appointments will be available to be pre-booked up to 4 weeks ahead rather than keeping some for each clinician to be accessed on the day. This will avoid the rush of routine calls for appointments at 8AM.

You can still pre-book a telephone call consultation. This is to save you having to come into the surgery when a telephone call is appropriate. This can help to improve access to a doctor of your choice for continuity.

Alternatively, you may be able to book a convenient slot with a GP or Nurse Practitioner via the website if you have already applied to do so. Please see the tab above entitled ' Online services'.

Please note that all appointments are for 10 minutes duration. If you want your concerns to be dealt with thoroughly, try to limit each consultation to one problem. If you feel that your problem may take longer please alert the receptionist so that a longer slot can be booked.

Therefore, when you ring up to make a routine appointment you will be offered the choice of an appointment at the surgery or a telephone consultation.

URGENT APPOINTMENTS

If you are unwell or have an urgent problem which needs to be dealt with on the same day, there is a morning triage surgery and afternoon duty clinician. They will be based at the main Barnard branch.

Call the reception team from 8am on the day you need to be seen.The receptionist will take your telephone number and brief details of the problem, so that we can triage the urgency of the call.

Each morning one doctor does a triage surgery. Please be aware that this surgery can become very busy, it may therefore be some time before you are called back, so please give a contact number where you will be available until early afternoon.

The GP will then return your call and may offer treatment or give advice. If he/she feels that you do need to be seen, he/she will arrange this for you.

EXTENDED OPENING

LATE APPOINTMENTS ON ALTERNATE TUESDAY OR WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY MORNING WILL REMAIN AS THEY ARE NOW PRE-BOOKABLE ONLY.

They are primarily aimed at those patients who have difficulty attending appointments during our normal opening hours.

HOW TO SEE A NURSE

Telephone or come to reception to make an appointment with one of our Practice Nurses.

Practice Nurses

For some conditions, it might be worth considering an appointment with a practice nurse rather than a doctor. Practice nurses are qualified to deal with many conditions and are an integral part of the chronic disease management team. Speak to reception if you are unsure if your problem is suitable.

If you require a District Nurse to attend, the initial referal will be by a Doctor/ Nurse Practitioner or Practice Nurse

HELPING US TO HELP YOU

If you arrive more than fifteen minutes late for an appointment, you may be asked to make another appointment - unless it is an emergency.

Please cancel any appointments you are unable to attend, whether at the Surgery or a Hospital.

DID NOT ATTENDS (DNA's)

Many patients do not keep their booked appointments. See Latest News page for recent months' number of DNA's

Please be considerate, if you are unable to keep an appointment then please inform us so that we can use that appointment for someone else.

HOME VISITS

Home visits are generally reserved for patients who are terminally ill, genuinely bedbound or who do not leave the house for any reason, and for patients who are severely ill and cannot be mobilised.

Please request visits before 11am whenever possible as this allows time for the doctor to contact you about the request and decide on the most appropriate management. Late requests often lead to disruption of the appointment system and excessive waiting times for others. Visits usually take place 12-2pm.

A doctor will call you back on most occasions to assess your problem. This is to enable the doctor to prioritise visits. We will visit only if the patient’s clinical condition prevents them from travelling to the surgery and they are deemed to have a medical condition that necessitates an urgent medical opinion which cannot be otherwise managed.

GPs are not obliged to visit a patient if they have assessed the patient's clinical need on the telephone and felt that an alternative method of healthcare would be more appropriate. This may include offering an urgent appointment at the surgery, contacting the district nurse or advising to attend urgent care or accident and emergency.

Age is not a criterion for a home visit, this applies to both older and younger people.

Home visits will not be undertaken for social, financial or transport reasons.

GPs are better able to assess patients in the surgery where they have access to specialist equipment and better examination facilities and is the preferred site for consultations.

GPs having to visit inappropriate house call patients are delayed from visiting those patients who are in genuine need of a visit and therefore this poses an unacceptable clinical risk. We can usually see 4-6 patients at the practice in the time it takes to do a home visit.

Please dial 999 in case of a genuine life threatening emergency. For life-threatening emergencies, requesting a visit from a GP can delay life-saving treatment.

Examples of such situations are:

Suspected Heart attack

Severe shortness of breath

Severe bleeding

Suspected stroke

Loss of consciousness

GPs will NOT usually visit for the following conditions and circumstances and it is expected that the patient will attend the surgery if needing to be seen.

Common symptoms of childhood: fevers, cold, cough, earache, headache, diarrhoea /vomiting and most cases of abdominal pain. These patients are usually well enough to travel by car. It is not harmful to take a child with a fever outside. These children may not be fit to travel by bus or walk, but car transport is usually available from friends, relatives or taxi firms.

Adults with common problems, such as a cough, sore throat, influenza, back pain and abdominal pain, are also readily transportable by car to the surgery premises. Common problems in the elderly, such as poor mobility, joint pain and general malaise.

Please remember

The practice is not responsible for arranging transport to the surgery.

We will not visit for convenience.

Wherever possible patients requiring a consultation with a GP will be asked to attend the surgery.

The consultation is better performed at the practice surgery where the GP undertaking the consultation has access to the full clinical record and access to support services such as Practice Nurses and the correct facilities for undertaking examinations.

Home visits are not an efficient use of pressurised GP time and can even delay treatment when an alternative method of healthcare may be more appropriate.

Training Practice

We are a training practice, training young graduate doctors for general practice.

Dr Hutson is the GP Trainer.

From August 2015 Dr Nathalie Epperlein will be working with us. As part of her training she will be sitting in and observing surgeries. After her induction period she will then start to have her own surgeries.

We also teach medical students from King's may in the practice, but being unqualified they do not have overall responsibility for patient care.

Sickness Certificates

You do not require a doctor's sickness certificate for any illness lasting seven days or less. Your employer may however require you to complete a self-certification form (SC2) which is available from your employer or on the HMRC website.

Evidence that you are sick

If you are sick for more than seven days, your employer can ask you to give them some form of medical evidence to support payment of SSP (statutory sick pay).

It is up to your employer to decide whether you are incapable of work. A medical certificate, now called a 'Statement of Fitness for Work’ (see below) from your doctor is strong evidence that you are sick and would normally be accepted, unless there is evidence to prove otherwise.

You could also provide evidence from someone who is not a medical practitioner, e.g. a dentist. Your employer will decide whether or not this evidence is acceptable. If your employer has any doubts, they may still ask for a medical certificate from your GP.

Statement of Fitness for Work - ’Fit Note'

The 'fit note' was introduced on 6 April 2010. With your employer's support, the note will help you return to work sooner by providing more information about the effects of your illness or injury.